Stuck on a dwarven Sub: 30 Dwarven Quirks

[Agar]

I've kind of stalled out around 13 of my 30. I'm talking actual quirks for dwarves, not the usual "Get's offended at short jokes" or "Is afraid of horses" although I've never understood the horse thing. I was hoping to avail myself of my fellow dwarves and see what new dwarf quirks we can make. Here's my list so far:

• Polishes coins in spare time. May have a special polishing rag and/or compound. Aside from the flaunting of wealth and occupation of idle hands, may end up using a highly polished coin as an impromptu signal mirror, a highly visible distraction, or a bonus to haggling: "Sure I'm only offering you 3 gold for that breastplate, but it's Dwaven gold!" empties pouch to reveal 3 unusually glittery gold coins
• Chews his beard. Like constantly. There's hardly a moment the end of his beard isn't in his mouth. If you see it hanging loose, the tip looks like a drain clog attached to the end of his beard, and almost smells as good.
• Braids his beard with great skill and frequency. Every day, sometimes several times a day, his beard has a new knot pattern braided into it. Usually it is just his beard that's braided, especially is his beard has a white lock similar to a witches lock, which is used for highlights (an axe head, a dragon breath, etc). Sometimes may have accents of ribbon or wire braided in as well, but that's usually just for special occasions
• Inscribes nearly everything made of metal that passes through his hands - May have a miniaturized scribing tool as a bead in his beard. Inscribes designs signifigant to the thing, like a knot pattern of a sun onto a gold coin, or a shield would have a protective motif or a fearsome creature on it.
• Frequently makes weather predictions as small talk - But he is horribly, comically wrong - like having snowshoes ready in summer, or packs weather gear to have it ready
• Has a dirt ritual. While traveling or getting ready to fight, he may rub dirt on his hand, may smell it deeply. If spending the night, he may eat a handful of it before dinner or resting.
• Has a specialized dwarf eating utensil (Meal axe, Spoonhammer) and insists it is superior to all other eating utensils. Tries to one up nearly every bite. "Ha, bet your fork can't do this!
• Exaggerates the information a dwarfs sense of stonework tells him to a ridiculous. Like if a particular rock was used in a murder."That's a find wall you have there, except for that stone there, 4 in and third up. No, the one above that one. That stone has a dark history. Two lovers, forbidden of course, a man, young and driven by desire, thrown into a rage by unexpected rejection, used that stone to kill his companion. Yup, fine wall other than that stone.
• Has a large (arm sized) root, pungent with a penetrating smell not unlike mothballs, that he carries everywhere and adds to his consumables. He may shave off or some times dice it up to put in his food, breaks off twigs and stirs his hot drink with, etc
• Doesn't trust the sky. How would any reasonable person trust anything hanging above them? "You'll see! How do you know that isn't the vast fiery belly of a beast? Or the "Moon" a great lidded eye of a dragon, slowly and drowsily blinking as it gazes down? One day something will come from the sky, full of screams and death, and then you'll see! Mark my words!" {...and now the DM has a plot hook...} - this one could even be true of all dwarves in a world, being accustom to being underground.
• Talks to stone/earth like it has feelings, and he has feelings for it. Deep feelings, the kind that make you a little uncomfortable to overhear.
• Has a collection of exotic yet effective specialty tools. Lockpopper: an extendable lever and fulcrum, merchant scales, carbide blade sharpener, etc
• Haggles about everything, all the time, over coin, bartering, exchanging favors, every interaction of goods or services there is, he has a angle for. He warns those that won't deal with him about the dwarf curse: that's it's good fortune to trade with a dwarf, that's why you'll always see a dwarf with money, because they trade with each other, but those that won't work out a deal with a dwarf will always get a bad trade. It's up to the player to decide if he will bargain to help others while helping himself, or if he's just a greedy jerk, but the haggling is there for good or ill.
• Calls Cheese the stone of food and tries pairing it other food and drink, including other cheeses.

[Murometz]

The Horn of Agar has been sounded, brothers and sisters of the beard! To arms!!!!

[Dozus]

15. Obsessively collects runes. He pores through ancient texts looking for Dwarven runes he hasn't seen before, then inscribes them on small stone tiles (Scrabble-like) that he keeps in a bag on his person. He constantly shifts through the bag, running his fingers over the tiles and muttering the runes and their meaning.
16. Calls Stone the cheese of food and constantly has pebbles in his mouth. He insists that dacite is superior to andesite, at least in this igneous layer, but nothing beats olivine. "Won't you try a bite?" he asks through cracked teeth.

[Murometz]

17 Functions akin to a nocturnal creature. By day he is sleepy, morose, and disinterested, seeming to barely be functioning (not the best for adventuring), but by the time the PCs settle down for an evening's campfire, he animates and becomes hyper-active, suddenly following up on conversations he had completely ignored earlier, swinging his axe around shouting out challenges to unseen foes in the darkness, and if all else fails, begins singing at the top of his lungs. He will try to keep everyone up as long as possible, and generally annoy his sleepy comrades. At least there is never an issue with him around, as to who will stay up to guard every night. When morning comes he reverts back to walking-coma mode, indeed, the PCs spend up to an hour each day just trying to rouse him.

[axlerowes]

18) Uses numerical descriptions for every thing.  "I can say with 10 out of 10 certainty that this is the 3rd best cheese, out of all 17 varieties I have ever eaten on all 182 occasions of eating cheese."
 

[axlerowes]

19) Keeps eating the same stone. Some breeds of dwarves chew stones to keep their teeth worn down, this particular dwarf is very found of one particular stone he has been chewing for years:  even after swallowing the stone and passing it.

[axlerowes]

20) Obsessed with dwarfopomorphizing objects and then understanding the past lives of those objects: The god that gave forth the dwarf is a waste not want not type, and in this vein he did not understand why new souls should be continually generated. Thus a dwarf does not travel to the after life, at least not for long, but he/she is instead reincarnated as another dwarf.  The dwarf with this particular quirk, like many sees personality in things such as stones and tools. But not only does he talk to the stones and tools, but he gets fixated on determining what they were in a past life.  "Magmapulse (dwarven name) get me a pick axe from the wagon, I think this wall is about to give up the vein." Moments later..."Oh no not Lucy, she was a trowel in her past life, she is not good for taking down vertical walls, hurts her soul to much."

[axlerowes]

*21) Septpolar disorder: Unlike common enough human bi-polar, dwarves with this personality problem will rapidly shift their personalities between seven different extreme. This dwarf will one minute be Grumpy, and then the next Sleepy, followed by rapid transition to Dopey behavior.  The seven poles are of course: Short attention span (doc), Grumpy, Sleepy, Happy, Dopey, Hypochondria (sneezey) and bashful. 


Maybe too meta for serious gamers

[EchoMirage]

22) Ancestor Worshipper
Dwarves venerate their ancestors - but this one is obsessed with genealogy, filling up his pantheon with ever more distant relatives.
"Let us ask our common great uncle for luck in this endeavour."
23) Legacy Hoarder
Despite the fact that his ancestors held numerous objects of worth, power and beauty, he thinks his particular branch of the family is entitled to them all, due to being the most worthy.

[axlerowes]

24) Explicit contract for every joint venture:  True dwarves invented the contract as a way of making words like stone.  This particular dwarf extends this tradition all little to far, almost as desire to control and be certain about every aspect of the future.

"Attention please, I have drawn up a rough agreement here in the dirt. As you will see I will lower the bucket into the well. I will wench the bucket up, I will do this within 400 heart beats, if I have not completed the water collection by that time, Jonick here will step up to the well and assist me. If we do not complete the project in another 400 heart beats than Raff and Flagquarry will take over.   The bucket will then be passed to Raff, or Raff will retain possession of the bucket. Then  Raff will travel to the trough and empty  the bucket.  Should there be a hole in the bucket...."

[axlerowes]

25) Only drinks through sponges. This dwarf is terrified of Nuverl, and indeed frightened of any standing pool of water.  He wears turtle totems and only drinks by soaking up the liquid into a sponge and then sucking it out of that sponge.  Bathing, if he does it, works much the same way.

[axlerowes]

26) Really dislikes alloys: He of course recognizes the benefits of bronze or steel, but they always strike him as little crass or distasteful. Alloys are dilutions of the pure beauty of metal. The sound these hybrid metals make strikes him as terribly tacky.  He can understand why they have a place in the mines or the workshop, but to eat your food with a steel knife: tasteless.

[axlerowes]

27) Equates Uncertainty with Lying:  This dwarf does not have  a "maybe" thought process.  People can be wrong, but he cannot grasp how they can be uncertain.  Thus any uncertainty strikes him as a lie and he detests liars.

Human: I saw ten or twelve people running out the library.
Dwarf Constable: Which was it ten or twelve?
Human: I don't know.
Dwarf Constable: But you saw people, you saw more than 9 you are certain about that?
Human: Yes
Dwarf Constable: Well if you saw people how can you not know how many, I can understand you being wrong, but you must know how many you saw. Why are you trying to deceive us? Who are you protecting?! Where is the stolen of Tome of Beard Heredity?!"

[axlerowes]

28) Detests moist or wet food.  This dwarf find the thought or the sight of mouths masticating juicy or succulent morsels nauseating. He prefers his meat cut thin and burnt, he prefers hard bread, cheese and crackers. He dries his fruit and roasts his vegetables black.   

[Agar]

Wow! Thank you for all your support! I was able to think of two more today and that rounds out 30!

29: Sneezing Berserker. Not that he sneezes while he is going berserk, it's that if he sneezes, he goes berserk. Surely, he wouldn't have an allergy to anything ... Actually, he may keep a small pouch of pepper or other substance to make himself sneeze when he needs to berserk.

30: No day/night cycle. Truly hates mornings. It's not that he's nocturnal, it's just his sleep/wake cycle was ingrained into him in mining shifts, not influenced by the sun. The sun always comes up too soon, and no amount of coffee will appease him, although some ale may lubricate his good manners back into being. He may get ready for bed by twisting the horns on his helmet around so its on his head backwards, shielding him from the rude sun.